"Buddhist sutras have preserved and transmitted the direct words and teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha at first as oral tradition, later written since the fourth century B.C.E. In the Diamond Sutra, a mainstay of the Mahayana tradition, the Buddha responds to a disciple's question about how to become a Buddha. The answer: we must move beyond personal enlightenment to follow the path of the Bodhisattvas, fully enlightened beings who postpone Nirvana in order to alleviate the suffering of others. To understand this brief but difficult teaching, Red Pine, the respected translator of the Collected Songs of Cold Mountain and Lao-Tzu's Taoteching, went beyond the 'usual' Chinese versions to translate the more poetic, and meaning-laden, Sanskrit. Here, he well presents that translation, his comments, and excerpts from commentaries classic and modern." -- James R. Kuhlman, University of North Carolina Library, Asheville

"The Diamond Sutra may look like a book, but it's really the body of the Buddha. It's also your body, my body, all possible bodies. But it's a body with nothing inside and nothing outside. It doesn't exist in space or time. Nor is it a construct of the mind. It's no mind. And yet because it's no mind, it has room for compassion. This book is the offering of no mind, born of compassion for all suffering beings. Of all the sutras that teach this teaching, this is the diamond. It cuts through all delusions, illuminates what is real, and cannot be destroyed. It is the path on which all buddhas stand and walk. And to read it is to stand and walk with buddhas." -- from the Translator's Preface.